Corrective 'Re-education' as Cultural Genocide in Xinjiang (Uyghur region)

Abstract:

In this time of political 're-education', Xi Jinping’s Han-majoritarian state has reconstructed the Uyghur body, mind, language, religion and culture as an existential and biological threat to the Chinese nation (Smith Finley 2019; Roberts 2018). An examination of the 2017 Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Regulations on De-Extremification and related documentation reveals a disturbing concept of 'correction' that reminds us of Bradley Campbell's (2009) notion of genocide as social control: a top-down moralistic correction of 'deviant' behaviour by an increasingly powerful and violent state. In this talk, I draw upon Bradley's theory to illuminate instances of linguistic, religious and cultural erasure documented in visual data and 'guerrilla interviews' (Gold 1989) collected during my field trip to Xinjiang (Urumchi and Kashgar) in June-July 2018. Concurring with Clarke's (2018) view that the Chinese state's true motivation in labelling Uyghur opposition as ‘religious extremism’ is to generate diplomatic capital for the ongoing repression of Uyghur autonomist aspirations, I will suggest that 're-education' in Xinjiang is a 'final solution' to defeat a perceived anti-colonialist movement and erase the Uyghur identity as that movement's lifeforce.

Speaker bio:

Joanne Smith Finley is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies in the School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University, UK. Her research interests include evolving Uyghur identities in Xinjiang, China; Islam, gender and the state in Xinjiang and the Uyghur diaspora; PRC counter-terrorism as state terror in the era of mass internment; and corrective 're-education' in Xinjiang as cultural genocide. Her monograph The Art of Symbolic Resistance: Uyghur Identities and Uyghur-Han Relations in Contemporary Xinjiang (Brill Academic Publishing) was published in 2013. Dr Smith Finley is co-editor of two volumes: Situating the Uyghurs between China and Central Asia (Ashgate, 2007) and Language, Education and Uyghur Identity in Urban Xinjiang (Routledge, 2015), and Guest Editor of a Special Issue (2019) for Central Asian Survey, titled: 'Securitization, Insecurity and Conflict in Contemporary Xinjiang'.

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